On Tue 12 Jun 2001 at 09:29PM +0200, Gianni Cunich wrote:
> Sorry, but I actually got bored about the discussion about the abc2midi
>behaviour...so bored I actually felt sick!
>
> The problem about the way abc2midi handles the broken rythms shortcut is that it
>actually playes (and "save as" midi) any beat using the ">" symbol as a triplet, even
>if in the R: field you state the tune is a schottische (and English schottisches, at
>least the oldest ones, are usually played dotted, unlike the recent ones of the
>hornpipes), or a polka, or anything else...
>
> In other terms, the basic thuth is that ac2midi is not an "abc compliant" software,
>or, to say better, is unreliable...and that's all we can (and should) say about it!
I have to disagree strongly here. My understanding of the a>b construct is
that it is specially for hornpipes and so you can use it for a 2:1 ratio
if that is what you want elsewhere. If you want 3:1, then you can write
a3/2b/2. The real culprits are the musicians who have been notating
hornpipes in 4/4 when they should have been using 6/8 or 6/16. In other
words, you are blaming a piece of software because real musicians have
sloppy musical conventions!
Remember that abc2midi is intended chiefly to produce playable MIDI files, not
for back-conversion into notation programs.
James Allwright
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